Hazlewood Act no longer ‘unfunded mandate’

A proposal to infuse the Hazlewood Act with cash to help universities fund tuition exemptions for veterans and their children passed the Texas Senate on Sunday night but has yet to get approval from the House.

The Act, which exempts veterans from paying tuition and mandatory fees, has been in place for years, but in 2009, the Legislature expanded the program with the Hazlewood Legacy Act, which allows veterans who haven’t exhausted the benefit to transfer their credit hours to a dependent younger than 25.

Senate Bill 1158, authored by Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, would bring the program under the purview of the Texas Veterans Commission. A conference committee report adopted by the Senate on Sunday night adds funding to the bill — about $30 million will be funneled from the state’s budget to colleges and universities for 2013. Meanwhile, the bill authorizes moving $250 million in the Texas Guarantee Student Loan program into the treasury, where interest on that fund or a small portion of it will then go to funding the Hazlewood Act starting in 2014.

“It adds to sustainability and gives us a mechanism of a fund to go to our universities,” Van de Putte said. “We think with this, we have added the sustainability but also been able to mitigate the cost of a great program.”